Peru seeks to save a little fish with big impact

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2012 file photo, Marvin Vega unloads a crate of anchovies from the holding area of a "boliche," the Peruvian term for boats that are used by fishermen who fish with nets, at the port of El Callao, Peru. Not only has overfishing of the Peruvian anchovy, or anchoveta, battered the industry that makes Peru far and away the world’s No. 1 fish-meal exporter, it has also raised alarm about food security in a nation that had long been accustomed to cheap, abundant seafood. Peru’s government ordered radical restrictions on what the country’s 1,200-boat commercial fleet could catch after anchoveta stocks plummeted. But compliance with strict government quotas has been problematic. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
— AP

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2012 file photo, Marvin Vega unloads a crate of anchovies from the holding area of a "boliche," the Peruvian term for boats that are used by fishermen who fish with nets, at the port of El Callao, Peru. Not only has overfishing of the Peruvian anchovy, or anchoveta, battered the industry that makes Peru far and away the world’s No. 1 fish-meal exporter, it has also raised alarm about food security in a nation that had long been accustomed to cheap, abundant seafood. Peru’s government ordered radical restrictions on what the country’s 1,200-boat commercial fleet could catch after anchoveta stocks plummeted. But compliance with strict government quotas has been problematic. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
/ AP

Hoping to forestall similar unrest, and to get more fish to local markets, the government in September mixed new restrictions on the big anchoveta fleet with incentives for smaller boats. It barred the big, commercial trawlers from within 10 miles of the coast. Previously, the first five miles had been off-limits. Then it created a new category of "medium-sized" boats - between 10 and 32 tons - with exclusive rights to the 5-to-10-mile corridor.

The artisanal fleet of boats of less than 10 tons was given exclusive rights to the first five miles, where most anchoveta spawn.

The government decreed that the small and medium-sized boats would only be permitted to catch fish for human consumption.

But there is blatant cheating amid an almost complete absence of government policing.

At Pisco's artisanal pier on a recent morning, workers removed six tons of anchoveta from the turquoise-hued wooden trawler "El Tio" as pelicans and boobies picked at the scraps.

The oily fish were loaded onto a flatbed truck that navigated Pisco's dusty streets before disappearing through a eucalyptus grove into an illegal fishmeal factory, one of 15 that Sueiro says operate up and down the coast.

Ponce, the pier administrator, said dozens of the 300 boats at his pier similarly sell anchoveta illegally, especially in these slow days of the Southern Hemisphere summer when people aren't catching much else.

"The anchoveta is the only resource available year-round," said Ponce.

Sueiro, the economist, fears it could one day disappear as an industry, as other fisheries have.

"Twenty years ago we caught nearly 3 million tons of sardines (a year)," he said. "Now, they don't even capture a ton. Commercially, no one in Peru lives off sardines anymore."